GRADE 3 TERM 3 CURRICULUM NEWS 2022

This Term Newsletter will provide you with information about your child’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.

GENERAL
Wow! Halfway through the year already. We would like to express how proud we are of all the students and their success in Semester 1, we can’t wait to see them shine in Semester 2. The Grade 3 team would like to share their appreciation for all your support for the year so far.
We ask for this continued support in Term 3 to ensure students are completing a minimum of 80 minutes of home reading (filling this in their diary each night) and 40 minutes of Maths each week, then also handing homework tasks in on time. A friendly reminder that if your child is displaying cold and flu symptoms, that they will need to stay at home until feeling better.

The Grade 3 team are excited to share that we will be going on an excursion to The Werribee Zoo in Week 6 (Thursday 18^th August) of this term to support our Inquiry topic. We will be needing parent helpers, so please get in touch with your child’s teacher if you’re available for the day.

LITERACY
This term, we will continue to link reading with writing by analysing different author’s texts to see what skills they use to influence their readers. We will also continue to emphasise the importance of selecting ‘Just Right’ books to enable them to practice the comprehension strategies as well as their personal reading goals. Student Reading Journals will continue to serve as a tool to track their individual goals and daily reading.

In Writing, the students will continue to explore the Writer’s Workshop and emphasise the importance of using our Writer’s Notebooks to develop and stretch our ideas. This term will be building on our knowledge of vocabulary and using it to create fluent sentences of varying lengths and types. We will continue to encourage students to find authentic purposes for their writing and would appreciate parents supporting these endeavors at home as well.

A reminder that the following resources are available for home reading support:
Epic: https://www.getepic.com/
Sunshine online: www.sunshineonline.com.au

If you don’t already have the login details for these sites please contact your child’s teacher.

NUMERACY
In Mathematics this term, the children will learn about a range of concepts, skills and strategies with a specific focus on Multiplication and Division, Fractions and Chance and Data. They will be encouraged to use their problem-solving strategies to build a tool belt of skills to help them solve a range of mathematical problems. Students will also continue to focus on recalling basic number facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) quickly and accurately. They will continue to work on 2s, 5s and 10s times tables. It would be appreciated if you could help your child to learn these facts at home in addition to their homework. Families can also support at home by encouraging your child to play games involving counting and number facts.

A reminder that the following resources are available for home reading support:
Hit the Button: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

Maths games: https://www.mathgames.com/grade3

Hooda maths: https://www.hoodamath.com/games/third-grade.html

Maths Easily: https://matheasily.com/

INQUIRY
During Term 3, students in Grade 3 will be working collaboratively on our topic, ‘The Great Safari’. As part of this unit, students will develop the following understandings:

Continents and countries below the equator are part of the Southern Hemisphere

• Vegetation can look different and have important roles within environments – habitats, collect rainfall, etc
• There are a range of different climates within the Southern Hemisphere (3 main types: Tropical, Arid and Temperate)
• Types of vegetation and animals are native to those environments and rely on the climate to survive
• Natural environments are made up of flora, fauna and major natural features/landmarks

At the end of this topic, students will make an informative resource to share with the Grade 5 students about climates, environments and animals in the Southern Hemisphere.

Each year level team has provided their families with a detailed newsletter such as this. If you are interested in reading about all the exciting things happening across the rest of the school, these can be accessed online at our school website from early next week.